Monday, October 29, 2012

My first post was about pop-culture being about sex, drugs, money, and violence, not necessarily all at once. It was about how consumers accept what is thrown to them, and rarely question how the RIAA got so big, so powerful, and controls so much, while pushing out 20-minute hits. I said make your own opinions. I said don't just pick your opinions up off the floor that the RIAA and the RIAA-controlled radio threw them.
I said, "Think for yourself."

I again go to that girl who was so wrapped up in her own opinions that she refused to let fact in. Why did this happen? When did it start? How many kids are we raising to think that way - that fact has no room in our bubble of opinion? Can't they realise that fact and opinion are just two parts of the same idea?

Some examples for you all:

FACT: The Beatles were the most popular band of their era, with dozens of hits on dozens of charts in countries all over the world.
OPINION: You don't like the Beatles.
BAD THINKING: You don't like the Beatles, so anyone who does is an idiot, or a liar, or just plain wrong. You don't like the Beatles because the Beatles suck.
BETTER THINKING: I hate the Beatles. I don't want to listen to the Beatles. I won't listen to the Beatles. Some people, however, do like them, and just because they do doesn't mean they are wrong, stupid, or idiotic. It just means they like something I happen to hate.

FACT: The Twilight Saga is a series of books written by a housewife who had never seen the town she was writing about. Some aspects of this series match the popular young-adult writing fad of the time, which was to write about vampires, usually with romantic overtones. Its cult following ranges from very young to older adults, and can be irrationally vicious when defending their books, but has also been known to be rational and accepting.
OPINION: Twilight books are the best books ever! No one could ever write better books!
OPINION 2: Twilight sucks. They were badly written and rather boring.
BAD THINKING: You don't like them!? How DARE you! You wouldn't know a good book if it hit you on the head! Well, maybe you would! I'll hit you on the head with a good book until you get it!
BAD THINKING 2: You're an idiot for thinking they're anything but trashy vampire romance novels and they should be taken off shelves and burned!
BETTER THINKING: While I like these books, like is subjective. People might like books I hate too, but does that make them wrong? I'm pretty sure an idiot couldn't read all those long backstories by the guy who wrote about Legolas...or learn to speak whatever language that is. Books are books are books, and Twilight is just another bunch of books.
BETTER THINKING 2: They're trashy vampire romance novels, but they're good for trashy vampire romance novels. They're not up to the literary standard of, say, Tolkien or Lewis, they won't ever be assigned in a high school literature class, but there are people who like trashy vampire romance novels, good for them. Not every book is for every person, or why would there be so many books?

See? That's better! But yeah, no one's going to think like that unless that sort of thinking is ENCOURAGED. And that's the problem. They see their parents trash-talking someone's right to choose, as if that's not a right at all, as if choices of entertainment, music, books, friends, attitude, places...as if they are wrong? That's going to be what they do, too! Kids learn from parents.

But perpetuating the cycle of hate, of marking opinion as fact, and fact as opinion...when will that stop? Because eventually it's going to blow up in our faces.

Politics, a game of opinions, of choosing the person who you, personally, think would be better for the office they run for, has become a battleground of hate. No longer are we voting for people. Now the majority are voting AGAINST a candidate rather than FOR. And candidates, too, are dealing in factual opinions.
Romney is going to take away a right to CHOOSE for yourself something that should only ever BE your choice, ladies. Those who don't want an abortion shouldn't be able to say, "I don't want one, I don't believe in them, so you shouldn't be able to choose to have one."
Another Romney thing: taking away the right for same-sex LEGAL marriage. So what if you think it's disgusting, so what if you think it's wrong, that it's mandated by God as sin? That's between you and your RELIGION.
Tell me if I'm remembering this wrong, but I thought that our ancestors decreed that there be separation of church and state. Forgive me, and again, feel free to point out my potential wrongs, but I thought that meant that just because the federal government says that this is what is, what has to be, that you guys, you religions, didn't have to follow it? Well, unless you were into human sacrifice because I'm pretty sure that's murder and I'm pretty sure murder isn't covered by the excuse of religious reasons.
But am I? Am I right or wrong? Because if I'm wrong, then okay, my bad. But if I'm right, then you have your right to deny religious marriages to anyone you want, gay or not...but it's not up to you, not your choice, not your CALL, to deny legal marriage to anyone save active clergy, and then only in some.
I can't call to mind anything Obama has denied as a right that is an opinion, but if you want me to find out, sure, go ahead, tell me, and I will look it up. That's your RIGHT, to have an opinion.

But when your opinion is flaunted as fact, as what is, what has to be because you think it so, you want it to be so? That's where you should take a good hard look at your "fact". Go ahead, do it.

QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER
Is my fact universal?
Is my fact something that can be PROVEN?
Do other people have an opinion that directly contradicts my fact?
How many other people believe my fact?
Does my fact have anchors in real life?
Do people call my fact "controversial"?

Those are not be-all, end-all questions. All I can say is that if you get into a yelling match or an argument over something you believe is true, you've gone too far. Opinion or not, the only way we're gonna get back to things that matter, things that need to be addressed rather than things you want addressed, is to agree that everyone has a RIGHT to CHOOSE, and that no one has a right to PREVENT that choice.
But remember, things can go so wrong as soon as you neglect what is for what you think is.

I'm sure you've all heard that story about the Twilight fan insisting the Lord of the Rings movies were the original format, and I'm sure that you laughed, haha, Twilight fans can be such blockheads. But has something similar ever happened to you? I can say it has.

A few days ago I was in my local sub shop, minding my own business, waiting for my food, humming "I Want to Hold Your Hand". The Beatles are awesome, right?

Well this kid, couldn't be more than fifteen, she comes up to me and plants herself four inches from my face and says, "I'm sure you're having a great time with it, but it's bugging me. That song's supposed to be much slower."

It took me a bit, but I managed to choke out, "Not the original!" Then she said something that made me think, and even feel a little sad for kids if this is really how they think.

"I don't know what Helium-speed version you're listening to, but Kurt did the original." At this, I really did choke.

"Have you, poor thing, never heard of the Beatles?"
"Who are they?"
"Four guys from the UK, they were so popular so fast they called it Beatlemania, and let me tell you, I wish I could have seen it. News, televised concerts, screaming fans. Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, George Harrison, and John Lennon. They were amazing. There's one album cover that no one will forget. Four guys walking across Abbey Road, on that striped crosswalk..."
"Lady, I don't know HOW old you are but I never heard of no Beatles."

I admit it, I asked for help. I asked the guy at the next table, "Hey, you ever heard of the Beatles?!"
"Sure! I remember it like it was yesterday...they were sure somethin'."
"Now, could you tell me some of their most famous songs?"
"Sure! Hey Jude, Yesterday, I Want to Hold Your Hand...my wife and I got married and that was the second song."
"Thanks."

She looked at me like I was crazy. Then she did something that I will never, ever, in my worst nightmares, want to believe.
She denied it.

"I don't know who you two are, but it's not nice to go around tellin' people about a band doesn't exist." And she walked out.

Is this what American pop culture is now? Is this what we're leaving behind? Five-week bands, songs about domestic violence, sex, guns, and money chanted by people who couldn't sing if you paid them? Songs needing six writers and four producers for sixteen words rearranged every which way? Kids who don't bother to look past the next big thing? The way things are going, Sinatra will be just another name. No one will remember the BeeGees. No one will have HEARD of the BeeGees. It'll be what crazy thing this person did and OMG! A teacup kitten I want one! and "Did you hear what happened to [Name]?" No one will recognise good music. No one will know any better! Already we have rabid fans who DON'T RECOGNISE OPINION! I almost had someone ATTACK me once because I said that, a few years back, the Jonas Brothers "aren't my thing". Not, "I hate the Jonas Brothers with a passion and hate their fans too!", just, "Meh. They're really not my thing, but go ahead and listen if you want." I got SCRATCHES down my ARMS for DARING to say that I, personally, didn't like this band but it's great you like them, opinions rock. I now am SCARED to say ANYTHING to a Justin Bieber fan because even the worst Jonas Brothers fans had NOTHING on the rabid intensity of the vast majority of Bieber fans I have come into contact with.

This isn't what we want to leave behind! This isn't what pop culture should be! Why has this happened? Pop culture shouldn't be about rabid fans and denial of things that you didn't know before. It should be about things that are great, things that are popular and going somewhere and.... Not dresses made of meat and what this rich girl bought for six hundred million, or this newest rap song with swearing and allusions to domestic violence and drug money... Not what the music industry puts in front of our faces, not what the RIAA shoves at us until we're so used to it we just accept that whatever they say is good is amazing and awesome.